"I guess it means that people would rather put their money into butterflies than banks — seems like a better world today to me."

Say what??

Let's see... hundreds of millions of people use large percentages of their income for the purchase of an item that they will live in and will affect and perhaps even define their life experience, and this is managed by millions of people in a market where billions of dollars flow regularly, perhaps even monthly.

Vs.

A market where a individuals or small groups invest large amounts representing small portions of their income into something they perch somewhere to look at. And this is managed by a few thousand people in a market where at best, millions of dollars flow annually.

Yeah... that's equivalent. Either this dips*** aspirated the "some" in that sentence, or he's got a severe case of perspective distorion. When one of his pieces failing to sell generates sympathetic bankrupcies of dealers and galleries, and forces a government bailout, maybe then he can get a big head about his relevance in the world. But not until then.

He had an exhibit at the Lever House in NYC this past year. Did you see it? That one was of sheep and a shark in formaldehyde. I think I would have enjoyed it more if the very nasty shark hadn't been the iconoclast hero of the work and I hadn't just gotten off the subway with the nastiest smelling human on the planet. At that moment I was embracing the very bourgeois value of cleanliness.